226 MODERN TURKEY

by the Anatolian main line to Haidar Pasha. In Turkey,
the region traversed by the Baghdad Eailway east of
the Taurus in the Cilician plain is the more productive
country; west of the lofty mountain ranges the territory,
except in the immediate vicinity of Konia, is not con-
ducive either to agriculture or to easy transportation.
In return for the rectification of the Turko-Syrian
boundary so as to give Turkey more of this southern
territory (originally included in the French mandate
for Syria and Cilicia), it is reported that the Nationalist
Government has assigned to a French syndicate the
Deutsche Bank's concession "for those sections of the
railway, including branches, between Bozanti and Nisi-
bin, together with all the rights, privileges, and advan-
tages attached to that concession." (E. M. Earle,
"Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway,"
page 3'25.) The Chester concessions have introduced
conflicting claims in the neighborhood of the Turko-
Syrian-Iraqi border. It appears that the Turkish section
west of the Taurus is operated by the Turkish Govern-
ment, that the section in Turkey east of the Taurus is
in French hands, while the control in Iraq is cer-
tainly British.^ Information relative to the whole Bagh-
dad enterprise, too vast and complicated to be detailed
here, is brought up to the middle of 1923 by Professor
E. M. Earle in his noteworthy book just cited.

The Smyrna-Aidin (Ottoman) Eailway, the oldest rail-
way in Turkey, is a standard-gauge, single-track line of
607 kilometers. It follows a route from Smyrna through
Ephesus to Aidin, and then up the Menderez valley to
Egerdir. Although the original concession of 1856 had
a provision that the government should pay annual in-
terest at the rate of six per cent on the original capital,
this understanding was not carried out. Twenty-three
years later a renewal of negotiations resulted in changes
in the concessions, with an agreement that thereafter the